Author
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Chang, Chiou |
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Submitted to: Annals of the Entomological Society of America
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal Publication Acceptance Date: 2/11/2001 Publication Date: 7/1/2001 Citation: Chang, C.L., Mangine, T.E., Brown, C.R., Harris, E.J., Bautista, R.C., Vargas, R.I. 2001. Larval development of ceratitis capitata (diptera:tephritidae) on a meridic diet. Annals of the Entomological Society of America. Interpretive Summary: The Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann) is a worldwide pest of fruits and vegetables. Currently control measures include the use of insecticides and various biological control methods. One such method (autocidal control) involves the release of sterile males (SIT) which will seek out and mate with non-sterile females. For this to occur flies are mass-reared, sterilized and released along with the wild populations. We are trying to improve the artificial diet used to rear the flies and have come up with a semi-chemically defined meridic diet for this species. This meridic diet is made up of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, RNA and an inert substrate, corncob. This diet was comparable to the control diet in every aspect except for a slight delay in the developmental period. With this meridic diet, we can continue to refine the quantity of nutrients and further develop into a completely chemically defined diet that would enable us to identify precisely the components which are required to rear the best quality fly and improve SIT. Technical Abstract: This diet was developed based on previous developed information in combination with the data extracted from the host of medflies. Evaluation of this diet was based on the following parameters: larval development period, pupal recovery, adult emergence, pupal weight, percent flier, egg hatch, egg production. Data were analyzed by multivariate analysis of variance using the ANOVA procedure of the SAS statistical analysis software package with honet significant difference (HSD). |
